Almería, 9 December 1942/16 December 2023
Professor Antonio Herrera Rodríguez, a leading light in Spanish orthopaedic surgery and president of our Society from 1996 to 1998, has recently passed away.
Professor Herrera was born in Almeria. He did not develop his professional career in this city, but always felt very proud of his origins, making constant references to it in his conversations. He studied Medicine at the University of Granada, after which he completed his training in Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology at the San Cecilio Hospital in Granada, subsequently furthering it in France with professors Judet, Kempf and Cotrel. He soon obtained the position of head of the orthopaedic surgery service at the Miguel Servet Hospital in Zaragoza, where he developed all his professional activity in the healthcare, research and teaching fields, training more than a hundred resident physicians and creating, in the more than 40 years that he worked at the hospital until his retirement, a genuine school which extended throughout the autonomous community of Aragon. His professional activity did not stop there. In 2002 he obtained the position of principal lecturer of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology at the Faculty of Medicine of Zaragoza and soon after, full professorship, an objective that he always considered a priority in the professional field. In all facets of his work, in healthcare, teaching and research, Professor Herrera stood out for his professionalism, his total dedication and his vocation. He was always demanding in the fulfilment of duty, first with himself and then with all those who surrounded him at work. His perseverance was permanent even after his retirement, remaining as professor emeritus of the University of Zaragoza and carrying out an intense research activity until the end of his days. He published more than a hundred works in prestigious journals, several of them in this last year.
Professor Herrera was a true personality and national and international reference in the field of orthopaedic surgery, leading him to the presidency of SECOT in the 1996–1998 biennium. He was also the driving force behind other scientific societies of which he was also president, including the Aragonese Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (SARCOT), the Spanish Society of Osteoporotic Fractures (SEFRAOS), the Spanish Association of Medicine and Surgery of the Foot, and the Spanish Society of Spinal Diseases.
Professor Herrera has left us but his memory and his imprint will live on forever in our Society and in all the orthopaedic surgeons in Spain.
We wish to send our love and a big hug to Amelia, who was his partner, wife and firm support, and to his children and grandchildren of whom he always spoke and of whom he was enormously proud.
Rest in peace
